Here’s the truth: I like my white privilege. And I don’t like being uncomfortable. Those things get along pretty well. But there’s another thing I value, more than those two things: humans made in the image of God. Overcoming racism is hard work, and for someone who benefits from the system, it’s not very fun work. So I try to find the path of least resistance. For me, that path is reading. Reading authors of color, (right now I’m focusing on Black authors), is my way in. My way around myself, if you will. This month I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me.
It’s not a long book. It’s written as a letter to his son. It was both beautiful and heart-wrenchingly sad. I read it it in just two sittings, not because it was an easy read but because his writing is so rhythmic and lyrical that I was pulled along by his words.
The book is not very hopeful. At the end, I felt this sense of sadness—what do I do with this information? Coates was unhelpful. I started googling and found a couple of reviews. One was by a Black author who shared my opinion—why was he so hopeless? Why didn’t he offer us any way forward? Does Coates think there is a way forward? (In this reading I was reminded, again, that Black people get to disagree with each other! They do not have to see eye-to-eye on all details of race relations and I shouldn’t expect that!)
It’s been several weeks since I finished the book, and there are two things I’m still thinking about: one is his discussion of what is lost when so much of your brain is dedicated to survival. If you know anything about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (I know only the picture graph hierarchy, please don’t quote me on this) this fits right in. If you’re thinking about not dying, you can’t really think about making music or writing a book or even really about having fun at the park.
The second thing is this: we need to make reparations. I don’t know what that looks like, or if it’s possible, but I think we need to attempt it. I think I need to attempt it.
Further Reading:
We Were Eight years in Power, also by Coates. This includes his essay on reparations, which I found online but was long enough that I did not fancy the prospect of reading it off a screen. This one’s on my nightstand now.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Natasha Robinson wrote a very upsetting reasonable and smart post about how she was teaching her daughter to read primary sources, so if you read Coates quoting Malcolm X, you need to read Malcolm X. I’ve made up in my head that this is going to be a difficult read, so I’m not making any firm commitments to this one, but it is on my list. Check back in three years.